Bill Simmons has gone from humble Boston-area blogger to the voice of ESPN.com in about a decade. And now his second book, The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy, is atop the New York Times bestseller list.
He appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live earlier this week (Simmons briefly left ESPN to write for Kimmel's show) to discuss the book and during the seven minute interview we learned a lot. Like the fact that Simmons used crystal meth, sports a weave, and had a 10-year sexual relationship with his father. At least to hear Kimmel explain it.*
Simmons also talked about an interaction he had with one hardcore fan during his recent Los Angeles book signing. Moving pictures details after the jump.
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- The universally popular bashing of Isiah Thomas is justified, but only to a point. Whatever the case, it continued on Monday night at the Dean E. Smith Center, where it was mostly harmless and often humorous.
Ailing mothers have a tendency to soften hard souls.
So, for the first time since just shy of forever, Thomas walked into a basketball arena as somebody that many wished to hug instead of choke. That's because hours before he made his debut as a college basketball coach for Florida International University against North Carolina (yes, that North Carolina), Mary Thomas was in a Chicago hospital preparing to have her 86-year-old heart repaired.
That's almost fitting because if there was ever a player who didn't seek out the limelight or look to bring attention upon himself it was Stockton. A truer point guard, the NBA has never seen.
Florida International has not played a game yet under new coach Isiah Thomas, but the program is acting like it is already a player in college basketball. They are threatening to pull out of the 2K Sports Classic Tournament, which benefits the Coaches vs. Cancer charity, because they are no longer slated to be the road patsy for Ohio State. Instead they are getting sent to Chapel Hill to face North Carolina.
The Golden Panthers had agreed to play in the preseason tournament even before Isiah Thomas was hired as the head coach. It had been presumed that they would go to Columbus to play the Buckeyes. Ohio State had indicated on its Web site that FIU would be the opponent. FIU and Thomas referenced starting the season there.
Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos.
For the past nine years the Harold Pump Foundation, created by David and Dana Pump (known as the gurus of high school and college basketball) has raised over $3.5 million dollars to fight cancer. The foundation's efforts have not gone unnoticed. Major stars such as Magic Johnson, Paul Pierce, Sugar Ray Leonard, Pete Sampras and Denzel Washington have all joined the Pump brothers. In this report we also hear from young NBA stars like Kevin Love, Brandon Jennings, and Blake Griffin.
Lance Stephenson is one of the top high school players in the country. He was a McDonald's All-American. He is also just about the only major recruit not running screaming from the rubble of USC that is without a college destination.
There have been many debates over the MVP award over the last few years -- from Kobe v. LeBron to the merits of Steve Nash's back-to-back awards. You can debate all you want about who should have won each year's MVP, but it is clear that a particular season's MVP is no longer likely to have playoff success.
With LeBron James' elimination at the hands of the Orlando Magic, this season marks the eighth time this decade that the MVP hasn't won the championship, and the sixth time that the MVP hasn't even made it to the NBA Finals. Compare those numbers to the 1990s, when the winner of the MVP award made the NBA Finals seven times and the won the championship five times.
TEQUESTA, Fla. -- This looked like a Bad Boys reunion.
The NBA came from around the country Wednesday to celebrate the life and mourn the death of Chuck Daly, but nothing was more impressive than his collection of pallbearers.
It was the nucleus of his two championship teams in Detroit, the ones that transformed him from just another coaching lifer into a Hall of Famer and Olympic Gold Medalist revered by all.
"I think when you go through the things we did together, there is a bond that never breaks,'' said Laimbeer. "This was a sad time, but a time to celebrate who he was, and what he did, and how loved he was.''
Isiah Thomas once cornered me in a hallway and issued a warning, mob-boss-like. "If you squeeze me again, you'll be sorry," he said. I'm not certain what warranted the threat -- and it's nice to know I haven't awakened to a horse's head in my bed -- but it was a classic snapshot of what King Isiah was like when he ruled the world, when he was a two-time NBA champion, when he was the best little man who ever played the game.
Now, years later, he is humbled, deleting the mountains of scandalous cache in his personal hard drive and rebooting himself amid the smallest of templates. He is escaping New York, where his dreadful tenure as boss and coach of the Knicks was exacerbated by a sexual-harassment case against him, and attempting to salvage his career and life at Florida International University, where a basketball team that hasn't had a winning season in 10 years played to average crowds of 693 fans last season.
He should own Chicago, Indiana, Detroit and New York by now. Instead, Isiah Thomas has the uncanny knack for making the most of himself and then throwing it all away, smiling all the way.
I thought the story ended in October, when Thomas, who grew from the ghettos in Chicago thanks to help from a mother who supposedly used a shotgun to keep gang members away from her baby, to all the highest heights. And then it ended with him on the floor, unconscious, having taken an overdose of sleeping pills.
Bill Simmons has gone from humble Boston-area blogger to the voice of ESPN.com in about a decade. And now his second book, The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy, is atop the New York Times bestseller list. 
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- The universally popular bashing of 
Who doesn't like a list, especially on a Monday morning when that's about all you can handle?
For the past nine years the Harold Pump Foundation, created by David and Dana Pump (known as the gurus of high school and college basketball) has raised over $3.5 million dollars to fight cancer. The foundation's efforts have not gone unnoticed. Major stars such as Magic Johnson, Paul Pierce, Sugar Ray Leonard, Pete Sampras and Denzel Washington have all joined the Pump brothers. In this report we also hear from young NBA stars like Kevin Love, Brandon Jennings, and Blake Griffin. 
There have been many debates over the MVP award over the last few years -- from Kobe v. LeBron to the merits of 
TEQUESTA, Fla. -- This looked like a Bad Boys reunion.
Isiah Thomas
